As two thousand of us were eventually bullied away from the hotel entrance, we saw our sheriff enter at the head of his deputies, leading them into the hotel and the final phase of the eviction, breaking into the doors of each of the hotel tenants and ordering them to leave their homes. And yes, we knew that each room was a tiny home, a place of final refuge for a lifetime of work, and that the room, though housed in a hotel, was still a home.
So when we saw our sheriff place his sledgehammer to the first door, banging and splintering the old dark wood into jagged pieces, we were ourselves diminished by every stroke of his hammer. We heard the wretched sobbing cry of horror, an anguished plea but also a warning, No! Don't do it! Don't do it! But our sheriff had made his decision, perhaps, he justified, to take responsibility by being an actor in this painful event, to mitigate what he imagined could have been a more violent end. But we would never forget his violent presence on that night and the sad betrayal of his actions.
Shame! Shame! Shame! we cried.
Where will you live when you get old?
Where will we live when we get old?
